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As the first institution to take part in Philadelphia’s Creating Canopy program, the University of Pennsylvania partnered with the city’s Parks and Recreation Department last week to distribute over 300 free trees to faculty and staff homeowners in the city to plant on their property.

The “Creating Canopy with Penn” program was created to support Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter’s Greenworks campaign, which calls for planting 300,000 new trees in the city by 2015, and Penn’s Climate Action Plan, which establishes a target of planting 1,700 trees on campus by 2015.

“We’re honored to help Philadelphia become America’s greenest city through Mayor Nutter’s Greenworks campaign,” Penn President Amy Gutmann said. “Our sponsorship of this program further engages our campus community in making the greatest possible impact on our city, expansion of our environmental outreach, and progress toward our ambitious sustainability goals.”

To achieve the mayor’s Greenworks target, the city plans to increase its own tree-planting activities, as well as work with numerous partners under this new tree-planting model in which everyone can play a role, including residents, neighborhoods, institutions, and corporations.

“Thank you to Penn for their continued commitment toward sustainability and for signing on as an early partner for this innovative program,” Nutter said. “Partnerships like this will help to plant more trees, in more neighborhoods, all across Philadelphia because every neighborhood deserves a healthy and robust tree canopy.”

Check out photos from last week’s Creating Canopy events on the Penn Flickr page.

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